On the first day of the panel discussion with historical characters, it was noticeable that most of the figures are women and they come from 19 to 21st century. It is understandable that people have more knowledge about the recent figures that they chose to be them. Even though, all the students were advised to select a figure that could represent gender, science, and technology, I feel like most of them decided to represent a figure that is more focused on gender. The figures represented by some of the students are the ones who have tried intentionally or unintentionally break the gender binary and the stereotypes of women.

Here's a rough transcript of the Panel of fictional characters we had in class on Wednesday.

First, we went through forum postings from the previous week:

    merlin: Imagining yourself doing activities actually changes the brain. For instance playing the piano. People who imagined themselves playing, but didn't actually know how, their brains appeared the same as those who were actually being instructed.

    watson/vgaffney: Close reading is still a very important skills in the humanities. Particularly english and philosophy. The complexity of the writing requires it.

When I walked into class on Tuesday, I was confused about Dennett’s analogy of the Library of Babel and its relevance to evolution and our lives. However, after discussing it further in class and talking about the blog postings, I came to the similar realization of some of my other classmates. I think that the belief that all ideas could be present in the library does lead to a sense of possibility and opportunity. I don’t think the idea that every single possible option of combination of thoughts or ideas is present in the library can be plausible. I believe it is our responsibility to combine these in a unique way, thus adding to the vast expanse of the library.